Skidmore Crushes: An Interview With the Creator

We all remember two years ago when college crush and compliment Facebook pages were all the rage. They were the best way to anonymously send a love letter, compliment a friend who had a bad day, or make a shout out to someone sexy on campus. I recently had the opportunity to discuss the brief but beloved Facebook page, Skidmore Crushes, with one of the creators and asked her some questions about the experience.

How did you decide to start the Skidmore Crushes page?

A friend of mine approached me on Valentine’s Day and said she really wanted to do it. I thought it sounded like a great idea, so together we decided we’d run the page. While we watched Love Actually with friends, we crafted our plan on our phones. Afterwards, we set up the page and started friending everyone we knew.

Was running the page what you expected it to be?

I don’t think I really had any expectations, but there were some surprises. For example, did you know that when you friend a ton of people in one day, Facebook starts asking you if you actually know them? That slowed us down a lot, we had to tell Facebook that yes, we did actually know the person every time. When the page started getting really popular, we had to set up an Excel document to keep track of all the crushes coming in to make sure we posted them all in a timely manner.

Did anyone ever catch on?

I don’t think so. There were a few times where we struggled to keep our cool, especially when our friends were talking about it or when people submitted crushes about people we knew well, but for the most part I think we did an okay job playing dumb.

What were some of the best crush posts you remember getting?

Uhhhhhh, that’s tough. I don’t really remember specific posts that much, but I remember that one person who didn’t understand how the page worked just posted on it as himself, writing about a crush, and that was really funny. Probably awkward for him, but the comments that followed were great too.

The page got shut down really quickly and seemingly out-of-the-blue. What happened?

Someone from Skidmore’s communications department (or something like that) emailed us and told us we couldn’t have it up anymore since it said Skidmore’s name in it. I’m still not really sure of the reason or why Skidmore Compliments has been up and running again for the past year, but we didn’t want to get in trouble, so we shut it down.

Did you ever think about starting up the page again?

It came up a few times, but we never really got around to it. We were thinking about re-opening it for a single day, Valentine’s Day, this year, but that never really came to fruition. It would be fun, but it was SO time consuming that I don’t think we’d be able to do it successfully anymore.

So there you have it, friends, straight from one of the creators of Skidmore Crushes. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a return of Skidmore Crushes at some point this year (we’ll be extra sure to watch for it on February 14th). Until then, Compliment away, we’ll be reading.